Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Times Square debacle

Bloomberg and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan can believe, if they wish, the praise for their ruinous redesign of the city's most iconic space. There was plenty of it at last week's ribbon-cutting for the "final" touches of the reconfiguration, which closed Broadway to vehicular traffic and installed ugly pedestrian plazas in the "bowtie" between 42nd and 47th streets.

But Bloomberg, who's vowed to "evaluate" things by year's end to decide whether to make the redesign permanent, should heed what most prominent New Yorkers are saying, publicly and privately, about the emasculation of the Crossroads of the World.

The remapping's had a horrific impact on drivers forced to use gridlocked Ninth Avenue and on bus riders who've found their routes (like the M6) inconveniently diverted---and that's before the heavy-traffic season starts after Labor Day.

But the gravest damage will be economic. It already has started, according to executives of two Times Square restaurants who told me on a not-for-attribution basis that business has been down since the plazas were set up after Memorial Day---a fact that's counterintuitive until you realize that a horde of milling, idling tourists can chase away purposeful strollers looking for a place to eat.

In fact, leading businesspeople are alarmed over the damage the scheme threatens to do to Times Square's office buildings, stores, hotels, restaurants and theaters---all industries reeling from the recession.

Bloomberg never got over Albany's nixing of his congestion-pricing scheme. He's used Sadik-Khan---a bicycles-uber-alles ideologue---to thin traffic by other means and without a whiff of oversight.

The hideous results are worthier of a provincial town than of a great city. Among other charmless results: Her little-used bike lanes have forced cars to park in the middle of streets and avenues.

But the Times Square redo is in a class all its own. With a wink from Bloomberg, she forced down the public's throat an unconscionable tampering with the chemistry of the city's most iconic place, with results already visibly disastrous.

On "The Late Show" the other night, David Letterman and guest Donald Trump had some fun with the mess. Letterman said the plazas had turned "the greatest street in the world" into "a petting zoo" and "encouraged [tourists] to bring coolers and sit in the intersection." He noted, accurately, that Times Square is "supposed to be vibrant and alive with the hum of the city and now...it's people in lawn chairs just sitting everywhere." Trump called the redesign "awful."

Both were playing it for laughs---partly. But Letterman and Trump are powerful players in the city's life and commerce. Their comic banter embraced both men's genuine revulsion for Sadik-Khan's autocratic fiats---a reaction that's privately shared by innumerable real-estate, retail, hotel-industry and Broadway executives unwilling to cross Bloomberg publicly.

In a conversation I had with Trump after the broadcast, he was even more emphatic. "It's not Broadway any more," Trump said. "It's no longer Times Square. I love the mayor, but I feel this is an experiment that should be reversed." Among other specifics, Trump raged against changing the "100-year fabric of Broadway." And the redesign is "terrible for retail," he said.

Most Times Square property owners are similarly appalled. One of them termed the reconfiguration "ugly" and "bizarre." (An exception: SL Green, which owns 1515 Broadway and says it "fully supports" the scheme.)

And "terrible for retail" isn't only Trump's view. Cushman & Wakefield retail broker Bradley Mendelson, who negotiated leases for many of Times Square's largest stores (including Toys 'R' Us and the new American Eagle Outfitters), calls it "anti-retail."

"It took basically narrow sidewalks and created a sidewalk 10 times wider. What this does is disperse the crowd and move pedestrians away from storefronts," he said. "I don't see those people in the chairs shopping."

CB Richard Ellis superbroker Mary Ann Tighe may know Times Square's economics better than anyone. She negotiated the deal that brought Conde Nast to Broadway and 42nd Street, among other things.

And while she respects the city's effort to make the area more navigable, she's not at all sold: "Who is benefiting? The people who are benefiting are tourists. The people who inhabit Times Square on a daily basis are not benefitting. It does not help them get to work. We've added another level of complexity to an already extraordinarily complicated environment."

It isn't too late for the mayor to slap down Sadik-Khan, whose shameless ambition to make a splash suggests she has her eye on a bigger job on a bigger stage---the Obama administration, perhaps?

With one stroke, he could give New Yorkers back the Times Square we deserve.